421
The borderline between irony and sarcasm
Ole Togeby
Aarhus University
Abstract
It is the claim in this article that the definition of both irony and sarcasm
involves a violation of one or more Gricean maxims, an allusion to a currently
highly accessible thought, dissociation, irresponsibility, ridicule, and critique.
The difference between irony and sarcasm is that the the speaker who is being
ironic addresses the utterance to a hearer whose thought is being alluded to or
echoed, in order to inform him or her that the thought is untenable. Sarcasm is
not uttered for information to the author of an untenable thought, but as scorn
of the principal of the sarcasm to the bystanders. However, in the analysis
of some (almost) authentic examples, it will be shown that real examples
are much more complicated and can only be analysed with a sophisticated
framework that includes the theory of presupposition failure.
1. An example
At the Danish general election on June 18, 2015, the centre-left Socialdemocrats won 47 seats, and among the right-wing parties, the Danish
People’s party (Dansk Folkeparti, DF, led by Kristian Thulesen Dahl) won
37 seats , Venstre (V) 34, Liberal Alliance (LA) 13, and the Conservatives (K)
6. The next day, 90 members (out of 179 total) pointed at the leader of Venstre
as a “royal investigator”, whose job it is to investigate the possibilities of
forming a government. In this situation Jens Rohde, a politician from V (who
left the party 6 months later), wrote the following on Facebook:
Sten Vikner, Henrik Jørgensen & Elly van Gelderen (eds.): Let us have articles betwixt us –
Papers in Historical and Comparative Linguistics in Honour of Johanna L. Wood.
Dept. of English, School of Communication & Culture, Aarhus University,
pp. 421-438, © The author(s), 2016.
422
(1)
Ole Togeby
Jeg synes at V, K og LA skulle enes om at gøre Kristian til
kongelig undersøger :-). Det kunne være spektakulært.
I think that V, K and LA should agree to make Kristian royal
investigator. :-) It could be spectacular.
[where ”Kristian” refers to Kristian Thulesen Dahl, who is
head of a party different from Jens Rohde’s own party]
Some minutes later, Frede Jensen commented on Facebook:
(2)
Jeg har stemt på dig ved de seneste EU-valg - men det er slut
nu. Jeg finder en anden og mere loyal venstremand til næste
valg. Du er partiskadelig.
I voted for you at the latest EU-elections - but I will not do so
again. I’ll find another more loyal politician from your party at
the next election. You are a danger to your own party.
As reported at DR tekst TV, Jens Rohde replied in the following way:
(3)
ROHDE: FORSTÅR INGEN IRONI?
Det skal ’tydeligvis’ forstås ironisk, når Venstres Eu-parlamentariker Jens Rohde foreslår, at Thulesen Dahl (DF) burde
være kongelig undersøger i stedet for hans egen formand, Lars
Løkke Rasmussen.
- Enhver kan da se, at det er for at udstille absurditeten i, at
Folketingets største parti vil stå udenfor regering. Ironi kan
forekomme, siger Jens Rohde.
ROHDE: DOESN’T ANYONE UNDERSTAND IRONY?
It is ’obviously’ to be understood ironically when EU-parliamentarian Jens Rohde suggests that Thulesen Dahl (DF) ought
to be the royal investigator instead of his own political leader,
Lars Løkke Rasmussen.
- Anyone can surely see that this was said in order to underline
the absurdity of the largest party in parliament not wanting to
be part of the government. Irony may occur, says Jens Rohde.
The borderline between irony and sarcasm
423
Is (1) an example of irony as claimed by its author in (3)? Or is it an example
of sarcasm? What are the criteria for determining whether something should
be understood as irony, sarcasm or some other figure of speech? This is what
this paper is about.
2. Dictionary definitions
The two notions of ‘irony’ and ‘sarcasm’ are sometimes used as synonyms,
but they do not have exactly the same meaning. By irony I will only mean
verbal irony, not romantic irony, tragic irony, cosmic irony or Socratic
irony, notions that all have their specific meanings differentiated from, but
related to, verbal irony. These distinctions will not be dealt with here.
The notions of ‘irony’ and ‘sarcasm’ are defined in the following
way in three different dictionaries:
(4)
Collins Cobuild English Language Dictionary. 1987, London:
HarperCollins.
Irony is a form of humour, or an indirect way of conveying
meaning, in which you say something in such a way that
people realize that you are joking or that you really mean
the opposite of what you say. E.G. She said with slight irony.
’Bravo’.
Sarcasm is speech or writing which actually means the
opposite of what it seems to say and which is usually intended
to mock or insult someone. E.G. ’Oh yeah,’ said Jenny with
broad sarcasm, ’I notice how you hate doing well in exams.’
(5)
Longman Lexicon of Contemporary English. 1981. Harlow:
Longman.
irony - a way of speaking which expresses by its manner the
opposite of what the words say: The irony in his words was
unmistakable.
sarcasm - speaking or writing which tries to hurt someone’s
feelings, esp by expressions which clearly mean the opposite
to what is felt. ‘Thank you for bringing back my bicycle so
quickly; you’ve only had it six months,’ he said with heavy
sarcasm.
Ole Togeby
424
(6)
Concise Oxford Dictionary. 1982. 7th ed. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
irony - Expression of one’s meaning by language of opposite
or different tendency, esp. simulated adoption of another’s
point of view or laudatory tone for purpose of ridicule ...
sarcasm - Bitter or wounding remark, taunt, esp. one ironically
worded; language consisting of, faculty of uttering, use of,
such remarks.
This means that two features of their definitions are common to both
concepts: (a) the expression is an indirect way of conveying meaning, and
(b) the communicated meaning is the opposite of what is literally said. Two
features of each concept differentiate between irony and sarcasm, viz. the
ironic speaker is (c) joking or using humour, and (d) simulating adoption
of another’s point of view; whereas the sarcastic speaker is (e) mocking,
insulting, hurting or wounding someone, and (f) speaks out of bitterness.
(7)
IRONY
(c) using humour,
joking,
(d) simulated adopting
another’s point of
view.
Expression
(a) which is an indirect way
of conveying meaning,
(b) the meaning of which
is the opposite of what is
literally said,
(e) taunting,
mocking,
insulting,
hurting,
wounding
(f) out of
bitterness.
SARCASM
These lexicon definitions allow us to distinguish the following two examples.
(8)
A teacher to a student who comes late to his class without
apologising: ”I hope you will excuse us for starting the class on
time.”
(9)
Thank you for bringing back my bicycle so quickly; you’ve only
had it for six months.
The borderline between irony and sarcasm
425
(8) is here taken to be an example of irony because (a) it indirectly conveys
something like (b) the message that the student should apologise for being
late, (c) because it itself is an excuse, which is not serious, but joking, and
(d) because it simulates adopting the student’s point of view. (9) on the other
hand is an example of sarcasm because (a) it indirectly conveys something
like (b) the message that the addressee should have brought back the bicycle
more quickly, and (e) it is telling him off (f) out of bitterness. But it is not
clear what it is in the form of the utterance or in its context that differs in the
two examples. In this paper, I will try to make a pragmatic description of the
differences and to draw the line between irony and sarcasm more clearly.
3. The indirect communication
The first problem to be investigated is how it is signalled that the message of
an ironic or sarcastic utterance is conveyed indirectly. What is the indication
of the indirectness of the message, as Birkelund & Nølke (2013), Nølke
(2013) and Birkelund (2013) call it? If people just directly say the opposite of
what they intend to communicate, nothing but misunderstanding will be the
result. If you mean ‘Turn left’ and say: ‘Turn right’, you are not ironic, but
stupid. But if in our discussion, I have maintained that we should turn right to
get to the tower we want to visit, and when approaching it we realize that it is
very obviously on the left-hand side of the road, you could say’:
(10)
OK, turn right!
That would be ironically or sarcastically uttered.
In (10), there are two indications that the message is conveyed
indirectly, namely inappropriateness and simulation. The simulation is that
your sentence is a sort of an repetition, a quotation, or an echo of what I
have just said, and the inappropriateness in this case is the fact that it is not
possible under the circumstances to make a right turn at all.
The simulation is best explained by Goffmann’s (1981: 144)
distinction between three functions of the role of the speaker, viz. the function
as animator, as author and as principal (in the legalistic sense). Normally
the same person has all three functions, but in (10), the speaker is only the
animator of the utterance, not the author of it, and not at all responsible for
the speech act. In (8), the teacher is both the animator and the author, but she
is not the responsible principal because it is inappropriate in the situation to
apologise. In (9), the speaker is the animator and also the author because he
426
Ole Togeby
is not quoting anyone, but he still does not take responsibility of the literal
meaning of quickly and only. What they presuppose is in contradiction with
six months, and consequently the speaker does not take responsibility for the
communicative function of Thank you. So in irony and sarcasm, the speaker
only simulates and does not take responsibility for the speech act which
the sentence is a literal expression of. The inappropriateness separates the
function of principal from the functions of animator and author. It is this
simulation that Sperber & Wilson (1995:239-241) describe as the utterance
‘being an echo of a thought’.
The inappropriateness can be of many sorts. In (8), the
inappropriateness is that the interrupted teacher is apologising to the
interrupting student, and in (9), it is the contradiction between six months
and the presuppositions of so quickly and only. In (10), it is the infelicity of
the directive speech act that is inappropriate (because the requested right
turn could not be carried out). In other examples, it is said to be the manner,
the tone, the voice or style that is improper. On a screen, the humorous
distance can be marked by a smiley or an emoticon as in (1) above. Notice
that when something is inappropriate, it is not just unexpected, but also
breaking the norms:
(11)
Da Umberto Eco i juni 2015 i en alder af 83 år blev udnævnt til
æresdoktor i Lodz i Polen, blev han spurgt om temaet for hans
næste bog. Han svarede, at det som regel tog ham seks-otte år
at skrive en roman, ”så det får I at vide, hvis I da ellers lever til
den tid.”
When 83-year-old Umberto Eco in June of 2015 was appointed
honorary doctor in Lodz, Poland, he was asked about the
theme of his next book. He answered that it normally took six
to eight years for him to write a novel, ”so you will learn,
provided that you are still alive then”.
Frederik Stjernfelt: ”Æresdoktoren og det videnskabelige testamente”
Weekendavisen #24, June 12, 2015, Bøger, page 6.
In (11) provided that you are alive at that time is a modified echo of the
thoughts of the audience, viz. that 83-year-old Umberto Eco would not be
alive in eight years, and is for that reason a very humorous remark, but not
irony (nor sarcasm), because there is no breach or violation of any norm. It is
just unexpected.
The borderline between irony and sarcasm
427
What signals or indicates irony, is not a single feature of an utterance
like linguistic form, context, situation, paralinguistic phenomena, common
knowledge or genre or discourse type (Nølke 2013), but always a sort of
inconsistency or clash between two features of the same utterance. It is
the claim of this article that what makes an ironic utterance inconsistent or
inappropriate can be pinned down to its being a breach or violation of one
or more of the four Gricean maxims (Grice 1967:27):
(12)
Maxim of Quality: Try to make your contribution one that is
true! Do not say what you believe to be false! Do not say that
for which you lack adequate evidence!
Maxim of Quantity: Make your contribution as informative as
is required (for the current purposes of the exchange)! Do not
make your contribution more informative than is required!
Maxim of Relation: Be Relevant!
Maxim of Manner: Be perspicuous! Avoid ambiguity of
expression! Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity)! Be orderly!
There is no breach of any maxim in (11); whereas (8) is a violation of the
maxim of relevance, (9) of the maxim of quality, and (10) of the maxim of
relevance.
4. Utterance, presupposition and implicature
In a pragmatic analysis of an utterance it is necessary to distinguish
between (a) what is said (its explicature, the literal meaning of the
linguistic form), (b) what is taken for granted although it is not explicitly
stated, because it is presupposed by the form of the uttered sentence (its
presuppositions), and (c) what is implicated in the situation by uttering the
utterance (the text) in the situation (its implicature). What is communicated
by implicature in irony and sarcasm is the negation of the relevant parts of
what is presupposed. The distinctions are shown in (13):
(13)
Example (8) repeated from above:
A teacher to a student who comes late to his class without
apologising: ”I hope you will excuse us for starting the
class on time.”
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Ole Togeby
U The utterance is: I hope you will excuse us for starting the
class on time.
E The explicature is: ’The speaking teacher excuses that she
and the other students have started the lesson as scheduled,
not waiting for the latecomer’.
P Some of the presuppositions to which the linguistic form
is an allusion, viz. those that are triggered by the word
excuse, are: ’it is to be expected that a teacher waits until the
latecomers have arrived’ and ’it is wrong for a teacher to start
on time’.
I The implicature, which is generated by the inappropriateness
of the teacher’s misplaced apology, dissociates her from the
presupposition of the sentence, and communicates that the
presupposed value judgement of the utterance is wrong: ’it
is wrong that it is wrong for the teacher to start on time’, and
hence ’students and teachers should be in class on time’.
The intended message of an ironic utterance is not just the opposite of the
propositional content of it, i.e. the negation of the sentence uttered, eg.. ‘I
don’t hope that you excuse us for starting the lesson on time’, or ‘I hope that
you don’t excuse us for starting the lesson on time’. The intended message
generated by the irony is a negation of the presupposed value judgement of the
alluded utterance, eg: negation of ‘it is wrong for a teacher to start on time’.
The ironic point is not descriptive, but evaluative and normative. Irony is thus
defined in the following way:
(14)
Verbal irony is an utterance by which someone says
something, which
a. because of a breach of one or more the Gricean maxims
b. is marked as an allusion to a currently highly accessible
thought,
c. which the speaker dissociates herself from
d. and which she in this way, without responsibility, ridicules and
criticises
The borderline between irony and sarcasm
429
If the thought is attributed to the listener, it is standard irony (or sarcasm); if
it is attributed to the speaker herself (or rather to her previous self), it is selfirony. Allusion is a figure of speech, in which one refers covertly or indirectly
to an object or circumstance known from an external context. It is left to the
audience to make the connection. It is what Sperber & Wilson (1995) call
an echo. The difference between irony and sarcasm is the following: If the
echoed and modified thought is only attributed to the listener as animator
or perhaps author, but not as a principal, it is irony; if it is attributed to the
listener as a responsible principal of the thought, the utterance is sarcastic.
Irony goes for the ball, sarcasm for the (responsible) player. The addressee of
an ironic utterance is the author of the thought alluded to, but the addressee of
a sarcastic utterance is primarily bystanders and only secondarily the speaker
of the thought echoed, the person who is the target of the mocking.
(15)
The speaker who is being ironic addresses the utterance to a
hearer whose thought is being alluded to or echoed, in order to
inform him or her that the thought is untenable. Sarcasm is not
uttered for information to the author of an untenable thought, but
as scorn of the principal of the sarcasm to the bystanders.
5. Theory of presupposition failure
The difference between irony and sarcasm is proposed to be a difference
between (a) informing the author of the alluded thought that it is untenable,
and (b) scorning the responsible principal of such an untenable thought
in front of some bystanders. But how can we define the difference
between informing and scorning linguistically? I propose that the theory
of presupposition failure, proposed by Peter Harder and Christian Kock
(1976) will yield the necessary tools.
They introduce a notation of the mutual assumptions of the speaker
and hearer in an communicative event involving presuppositions. S+ is a
notation of the situation in which the presupposition in question belongs to the
background assumptions of the speaker, +H that it belongs to the background
assumptions of the hearer; S- and -H designates that the presupposition does
not belong to the background assumptions of speaker and hearer respectively.
SH± indicates the speaker’s assumption as to whether the presupposition
belongs to the background of the hearer, ±HS the hearers assumption as to
whether the presupposition belongs to the background of the speaker. And
so on.
Ole Togeby
430
By this notation several speech phenomena can be defined: sincerity,
mistakes, one up-ness, communicative balance, solidarity, rhetorical
behaviour, bullying, deception, suspicion and achieved communication,
and the standard situation involving achieved communication. What the
speaker by her choice of form presupposes belongs in the standard situation
to the background assumptions of both the speaker and the listener, and
they both know that without any mistakes. It will have a notation as in (16)
(Harder & Kock 1976, with changes in notation similar to the ones made in
Togeby 1993:664):
(16)
S+
SH +
SHS +
SHSH +
+ HS
level 1
level 2
+ HSH
level 3
+ HSHS
level 4
+H
standard situation
In the case of namedropping the situation is different. If I say:
(17)
I got the idea that irony is an example of presupposition failure
from Peter and Christian.
I have presupposed that my relationship with Peter Harder and Christian Kock
is so intimate that I can call them by their first names, and this is true because
we were fellow students (notation S+). But in fact it will not be appropriate for
many of my readers (-H). Here I commit a PRESUPPOSITION FAILURE because
I presuppose something that is not part of your background assumptions. I
know that you are not that intimate with them (SH-), which means that I show
NON-SOLIDARITY with you; I only made this formulation to IMPRESS
you, which is an example of NAMEDROPPING. You might of course know
Peter, Christian and I once were fellow students (+HS), but if you don’t (-HS),
you will think that I am bluffing, and in that you make a mistake and then
you are ONE-DOWN. I assume you don’t know that it is a mistake (SHS-), and
that is what you assume about me (-HSHS). You know that I don’t believe
that you could address them with their first name (-HSH), and I know that
(SHSH-). This situation can be described as (18):
The borderline between irony and sarcasm
(18)
S+
SH –
SHS –
431
–H
– HS
– HSH
SHSH – – HSHS
intentional, aborted, sincere namedropping
Many of Harder & Kock’s presuppositions failures are illustrated in (19):
(19)
S–
SH
SHS +
SHSH
H
HS
HSH
HSHS
deception: different
S-marks on level 1 &
3 or on level 2 & 4
S– –H
SH – – HS
SHS + – HSH
SHSH + + HSHS
abortive deception:
S is mistaken; H
suspicious
S–
SH
SHS
SHSH
S is insincere
H
HS
HSH
HSHS
S–
SH
SHS +
SHSH
H
+ HS
HSH
+ HSHS
achieved deception: H
mistaken as expected by S
S
SH
SHS
SHSH
–H
HS
+ HSH
HSHS
suspicion: different
H-marks on level 1 & 3 or
on level 2 & 4
S+ –H
SH – + HS
SHS + – HSH
SHSH – + HSHS
bullying
Ole Togeby
432
S–
SH
H
+ HS
S is one up, H is
mistaken
S+
SH
SH –
+H
HS
S is mistaken, H is one up
SH
SHS –
H
+ HS
HSH
S is mistaken, H is one up
S+
S –
SH –
SH +
ordinary humouring
non-solidarity of S
– HS
S is one up, H is mistaken
S
S
H
ordinary humouring
non-solidarity of S
S– –H
SH – – HS
SHS – – HSH
SHSH – – HSHS
balance = no mistakes
S–
SH
SHS –
SHSH
H
HS
HSH
HSHS
rhetorical behaviour
play, cynicism, make
believe
S–
SH
SHS –
SHSH
H
– HS
HSH
– HSHS
achieved irony
The borderline between irony and sarcasm
S–
SH
H
S– +H
– HS
SH + – HS
SHS –
SHSH
HSH
SHS – + HSH
+ HSHS
SHSH + – HSHS
aborted irony, taken as
deception
433
making fun of
By means of this framework, it is possible to give precise definitions of
irony and sarcasm. They share, if achieved, the features: insincerity (S-),
intentionality (SHS-) , solidarity (no H-mistakes), no deception (-HS & HSHS). The difference is that the ironic speaker does not take the hearer to be
responsible for the presupposed value judgement that she dissociates herself
from, but takes him to be only animator or perhaps author (-H & SH-). This
holds for example (8) I hope you will excuse us for starting the class on time.
In cases of sarcasm, on the other hand, the hearer is insulted exactly because
he believes in the thought which is being ridiculed (+H) deliberately by S
(SH+ & SHS-). These features holds for example (9) Thank you for bringing
back my bicycle so quickly; you’ve only had it for six months.
(20)
S–
SH
SHS –
SHSH
H
– HS
HSH
– HSHS
achieved irony or sarcasm
S– –H
S– +H
SH – – HS
SH + – HS
SHS – – HSH
SHS – + HSH
SHSH – – HSHS
SHSH + – HSHS
irony = play
sarcasm = making
fun of
434
Ole Togeby
6. Analysis of (almost) authentic examples
The examples (8)-(10) were constructed in so far as their situational context
was invented in order to fit the category. In this section some authentic
examples will be analysed in the proposed framework.
The first example is a strip from the Doonesbury cartoon, Trudeau
(2013:194) The examples are found in the remarks of the characters in the
story in which the situation is already described, i.e. in the earlier strips.
The relation between the cartoonist, Garry B. Trudeau, and us, the readers,
will not be analysed here. The remark that is analysed is the question All
three?
(21)
The situation told in earlier strips is the following: The husband Rick is
an unemployed journalist, and his wife Joanie is a journalist too, but she
has just been hired as member of the campaign staff of a female politician,
The borderline between irony and sarcasm
435
who is the one who speaking on TV in the first two pictures. Alex is their
grandchild who has helped her grandmother and who is probably making a
congratulation call in the last picture.
Rick’s utterance All three is an allusion to Joanie’s remark I
wrote those three words. It is a violation of both the maxims of quantity
and quality, to presuppose that he doubts that she has written so many,
and to presuppose that it is a lot for a journalist to have written and had
published as much as three words. By this inappropriateness, he dissociates
himself from the value judgement that three words are many, and without
responsibility, he ridicules and criticises her proudness of having written
the words. Perhaps he is at bit envious too.
The relevant presupposition is that it is a great effort for a
journalist to have written three words. And it is this value judgement that
he dissociates himself from by asking the impudent question. He does
not have the presupposition as his background assumptions (S-), and he
does not think that she has it either (SH-), as she in fact has (+H). He is
mistaken. And so is she, because she does not realize that he is insincere
(+HS). He attempts to be ironic, and acts accordingly, but she is totally
naïve and happy. So his remark is intended as irony or sarcasm, but it is
not achieved because of her naivety. It is also relevant that there isn’t any
audience or bystanders in front of whom he could make sarcastic fun of
her. In a way, aborted irony is not irony at all, because irony is defined as a
perlocutionary act of sharing mind sets and value judgements. Only if it is
achieved is it irony according to the definition.
(22)
The presupposition: ’three words are many for a journalist’:
S– +H
S is insincere, rhetorical
SH – + HS
both S and H are mistaken
SHS – + HSH
both S and H are mistaken
SHSH – + HSHS
both S and H are mistaken
intentional, aborted, irony
And now we are in a position to see how this definition of irony
can account for example (1), which is a real authentic example which
furthermore has even been called irony by its own speaker.
436
(1)
Ole Togeby
Jeg synes at V, K og LA skulle enes om at gøre Kristian til
kongelig undersøger :-). Det kunne være spektakulært.
I think that V, K and LA should agree to make Kristian royal
investigator. :-) It could be spectacular.
The story behind (1) is that all four right-wing parties (V, K, LA and DF) pointed
to the leader of Venstre, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, as the royal investigator. In
other words, even though DF won three seats more than V in the parliament,
the leader of DF insisted that Lars Løkke Rasmussen, the leader of a
smaller party, should be appointed as royal investigator. Because of the
fact that DF is not mentioned in (1), it is presupposed that the (right-wing)
party with the most seats should lead the negotiations. This is what Jens
Rohde has as his background assumptions (S+), and he thinks that all his
readers will agree (SH+).
His statement is modified in two ways: There is a smiley, :-), which
signals joking, and the statement is marked as subjunctive by being in the past
tense although it deals with future events. He did not write:
(23)
Jeg synes at V, K og LA skal enes om at gøre Kristian til
kongelig undersøger. Det vil blive spektakulært.
I think that V, K and LA shall agree to make Kristian royal
investigator. It will be spectacular.
The past tense is normally understood as signalling a hypothesis or
counterfactivity, i.e. that the situation described is not real but only imagined,
and so the unreality is a presupposition of the remark too. And also this
presupposition is put forward by Rhode as in the standard situation: (S+,
SH+, SHS+, SHSH+)
What happens on Facebook is that Frede Jensen misunderstands (1)
as (23), and consequently thinks that Rohde really wants Kristian ThulesenDahl to be prime minister, and regards Rohde as a traitor (-H, +HS, -HSH,
+HSHS). In this schema, Frede Jensen makes one mistake (SH+ & -HSH),
and Rohde gets into trouble because he makes two mistakes: (-H & SH+
and -HSH & SHSH+). He escapes by claiming that it was irony, and that
he didn’t mean what Frede Jensen thought he meant.
But it was not irony. It was put forward as a hypothesis saying: ‘If
we did such and such, it would be spectacular and show the hypocrisy of
DF, but we won’t do it.’ It was a counterfactive hypothesis. It is interesting
The borderline between irony and sarcasm
437
that Rohde afterwards expounds it as irony with a very imprecise reference:
Ironi kan forekomme ‘Irony may occur’. He did not outright say It was
irony. I think that he knows that it was not ironic (S-), but that it will make
him escape from the incriminating remark because the readers will believe
that it was (+H & SH+).
References
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